Duties As a Nurse Practitioner: How to Counsel a Patient Essay

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Ethical Scenario: Skills as a Nurse Practioner

Nurses and other health care suppliers are the ones that are continuously confronted to make ethical choices in regards to things like life and death matters in giving out care to individuals, communities and families. To be pertinent and ethical, these choices need to be measured in the larger context of personal, societal, cultural and professional values and ethical ideologies. As scientific and medical technology advance, persons and society look at dilemmas and hard ethical choices. Nurses, as part of society and as frontline health care specialists, day-to-day face ethical dilemmas connected to life and death and fairness in health care. With that said, this paper examines the scenario of patient and nurse utilizing ethical principles.

As a nurse, the first thing to do is to understand that an unintended pregnancy further confuses the already confusing physical and mental changes of teens. Adolescents crave more and more liberation during the course of adolescence, and put a lot of rank on mingling with friends and starting a uniqueness. Nevertheless childbirth brings heavy duties to a teen whose major worry is not getting pregnant in the first place such as in the case of the 16-year-old woman. Even though the particulars of the duties of a nurse possibly will differ among nursing communities, the definitive goal entirely is to expand or uphold a patient's well-being. The accomplishment of this aim consist of the provision of care to patients with helping them make the right decisions, and utilizing the specialist skills and information that a nurse has in the case of this 16-year-old woman.

The nurse patient relationship model suggest that in order to provide effective healthcare, the nurse -- patient relationship needs to be established right from the start and, most prominently, this 16-year-old woman must start to trust in the nurse. As a nurse, I would invite trust through my professional position. This trust will be able to give the nurse accountability as this 16-year-old woman will hopefully start to have confidence in her motives and decision making. The young woman, trusts and expects the nurse to be truthful (Marsh, 2015).

In this scenario, the nurse has to be truthful to the patient. However, she has not actively lied. Because the teenager could possibly feel guilty or concerned in regards to taking steps to prevent getting pregnant, the nurse will need to focus on helping the teen through the mental and emotional distress she will feel, even though also providing practical advice concerning the pill.

For instance Lawlor (2015) makes the point that nurse will need to refrain from interpolating their own perspectives, and bring the support to the teen through whatsoever choice she will decide to make. In this volume, the counselor turn out to be a helpful source of information to the teen. As a nurse, telling the truth about the pill Ella is very important. Telling the patient a straight lie about the side effects would be ethically wrong1 and would openly conflict with the trust and expectation of the patient in the nurse. In this case, telling the truth is needed because the young woman could have some kind of serious health issue that neither are even aware of. The nurse has a duty not to lie, but not essentially a responsibility to tell the entire truth, as this is not at all times likely -- for instance, the nurse is not likely to tell the patients of all of the undesirable and unkind symptoms and pain they may suffer because of their ailments they may have that nobody knows. In these circumstances, the nurse has intentionally misinformed the patient as the nurse feels the evidence is not obligatory for the patient to recognize. Is this dishonesty lacking lying any dissimilar to lying when the end outcome is the same, or is it a difference minus a difference?

In spite of the deceit, as a nurse, it is my job to fulfill the duty to do what I would feels is in the patient's best interest (Begley A.M., 2008). The nurse has mediated her responsibilities to be unpredictable and that the obligation to make the patient feel better takes superiority over the duty to be honest. With this being done, the nurse could be taking some advantage of the patient's trust in her care and that aggressively misleading the patient is morally erroneous, free of what is in the patient's best interest and the circumstance that the nurse has no personal gain inspiring the young woman.

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Raanan Gillon makes the argument that, in relation to dishonesty, the ethics of non-maleficence and beneficence can supersede the duty of not deceiving (Raanan, 2006). The nurse achieves these ethics, as her reason in her dishonesty was because they really wanted the patient to feel much better, and she acted in completely good will. Supposing the nurse's deception is not discovered, there was likewise no obvious damage caused to the patient (non-maleficence). As a result, in this case, as stated by Gillon's thinking, the nurse's deception is strong. Nevertheless, if the young woman would ever find out about the deception, Gillon's quarrel falls, given that, in spite of the beneficent purpose, the patient may be mentally harmed and the nurse -- patient relationship hurt. On the other hand, the nurse's alternative here is to propose the patients nothing that might likewise be damaging to them. Possibly it is still defendable, since the risk of injury to the patient therefore of discovering the dishonesty and the extent of this harm may be less than harm caused by providing no treatment to a susceptible and patient that is frantic.

However, as a nurse I would explain the benefits of Ella first. I would explain that the pill is safe, suitable, and very real and that the pill allows for impulsiveness. I would also let her know that the hormones in pills do provide some health benefits. One of these health benefits is the protection against non-cancerous breast growths, iron deficiency anemia, ovarian cysts, pelvic inflammatory disease, PMS symptoms, and menstrual-related migraine headache (The Birth Control Pill, 2015). Acne is often is made much better, and the pill provides some kind of protection from some cancers for example ovarian and endometrial. Being truthful with the patience by telling her all of the good benefits and that they usually do outweigh the side effects, brings out more of the patient nurse trust. Also, presenting her with facts are very important. For instance, the pill is considered to a very dependable birth control technique. If the pill is used appropriately, not more than 1 out of 100 women utilizing the pill will turn out to be pregnant (.3%) (Lawlor, 2015). If the pill is not at all times used in the approved manner, 9 of 100 will come to be pregnant (9%).

Also, it would not be proper without telling the young woman how the pill should be used. For example, it should be taking every day and reminding her that the pill works best if it is take it at the same time every day. I would let them know that they might find it helpful to take the pill when she is possibly doing something else every day -- like eating dinner or brushing her teeth.

However, letting the patient know about the side effects at this point would be very helpful because now she should feel a level of trust. As a nurse, it would be important not to deceive her in regards to the facts of the negative side of Ella. She has the right to know all the information that she can in order to make the sound decision on what they need to do. She would need to know that in rare cases, Ella have been related with liver tumors, jaundice or gallstones. I would go in even further and let her know that women with a history of liver disease, for instance hepatitis, ought to deliberate other contraceptive selections (Lawlor, 2015).

As a nurse, if I was to deceive her, then she would not be taking the drug which she believes to be taking. How could she be able to consent to taking something if she is unaware of what it could be? If that was the case, then the young woman would have been denied the information that allows her to make a decision that is rational. It is uncertain who is in the best position to be determining what is in the best awareness of the young woman. In terms of health, the nurse is the one in a better position to judge on account of her experience and knowledge; on the other hand, without completely notifying the patient about Ella, as a nurse I would not be obtaining informed consent, as a result the patients are powerless to make a knowledgeable choice about their usage. It is worth mentioning that the patients whom the nurse is treating are disapprovingly….....

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